


Sisters-in-Law, Love and Labor

by mybrotherharry



Series: Arrow Drabbles [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Because that's what this is, Boneheaded Pining, Break Up, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Jealousy, Love, Pining, Romance, Set before 5x09, Sisters in law bonding, Such idiocy, Thea-Felicity bonding, They are both such idiots, Tooth Rotting Fluff, because even Susan and Billy can see it, because these two are ridiculous, believe me this is very very very olicity, don't be put off by the non olicity pairing, well I tried okay, with a little bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-08 12:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8845534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mybrotherharry/pseuds/mybrotherharry
Summary: Susan Williams has no business dragging Oliver out in the cold when he's down with the flu. Honestly, doesn't the woman know how to take care of him? Hmmmpphhh.Not that Felicity cares, because she doesn't. SHE REALLY DOESN'T. Shut up. (Fluff with a big dollop of Thea-Felicity bonding on the side.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> More tooth rotting fluff, y'all. 
> 
> Turns out, I can write very intense BDSM fics in between rainbows and fluffy drabbles. Go Me! This is the FLUFF side of my creative spectrum. 
> 
> Don't be put off by the non-Olicity tags - this is very much an Olicity fic, about these two morons who think they're pining in SECRET. What a joke. 
> 
> Set before 5x09, when Oliver is officially with Susan and Felicity is with Billy.

Not a lot of people know this, but Thea and Felicity have a weekly coffee and gossip date.

Actually, not even Oliver knows about their standing appointment.

They’d started it just after Oliver had gone to Nanda Parbat to become Al Sah Him, with Thea heartbroken and disoriented after being revived back into life and losing her brother. Those were some of the darkest days of her life. Felicity had felt equally lost, and they’d sort of fallen into the habit of sitting with each other over a cup of coffee in silence.

After Oliver’s return, the two women had turned it into a gossip session. Felicity was happier then, and Thea'd found purpose again, so they’d spent these weekly dates gossiping about Oliver, about the men in Thea’s life, and about the Vera Wang fall collection.

With their lives being crazy, the only change to their appointment is the location. They used to meet by a cozy, dilapidated coffee shop in the Glades, close to Verdant. After that, they moved to a high end chain cafe near Palmer Tech. Now, with the Arrow cave moved below the Mayor’s campaign office, they meet at the eclectic coffee place two blocks from City Hall.

Felicity had mistakenly assumed that Thea would stop their coffee dates after her break up with Oliver. She’d dared to skip their scheduled appointment, only to have a face ful of angry Merlyn-trained assassin in her face.

“What you do or don’t do with my brother,” Thea’d told her, “is your business. I don’t - and I cannot stress this enough - I really don’t ever want to know the details.”

“But,” Felicity had sputtered. “I thought - I thought you’d be mad at me.”

“Oh, I am,” Thea nods. “I know Ollie makes mistakes, and what he did with William - I was angry too. But he is my brother, Felicity. You made him so happy, and now he is moping around again looking intense. There is a part of me that will always be heartbroken for him, but that doesn’t mean you can stand me up for coffee. Our rituals are sacred.”

“I should have known,” Felicity’d admitted shamefacedly. “I am sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“It better not.”

And that had been that.

Today, she’s got her palms wrapped around a hot latte, trying to warm them up while she waits for Thea. She’d gotten there a few minutes early, and since it’s rare for her to get a free minute or two in the middle of the day, she relaxes into her chair, just trying to enjoy her quiet moment of peace.

It’s when she spots them.

Oliver is standing with Susan on the sidewalk just outside the cafe doors, both of them wrapped in thick coats and beanies. She _cannot believe_ Oliver is wearing a beanie. When they’d been going out, it was all gruff _I don’t need a beanie I am fine I am warm Felicity,_ but suddenly, Miss Overachieving Journalist asks, and he’s tugged a horrid looking beanie over his hair.

Felicity suppresses the urge to sigh dramatically.

She sees him lean forward to whisper something in her ear, most likely due to the noisy traffic at this intersection, but the gesture still makes something ugly settle in her stomach. She just - she hates seeing him with her.

Susan laughs, and tugs him close by the ends of his scarf, kissing him on the lips. Felicity looks away, really wishing she could unsee that. It seems _wrong_ somehow. It is just _wrong_ for someone to kiss him like that, to kiss him with a small peck on the lips.

Doesn’t this Susan know that Oliver can kiss with all his heart and soul, that he can lift a woman off her feet and hold her tight, that he can rearrange all of her insides with just his tongue?

Oliver doesn’t deserve to be kissed with a small, meager peck on the lips.

 _Anybody_ kissing Oliver needs to do it properly, otherwise, it’s just wasted opportunity.

Then again, if Susan _did_ kiss Oliver like that, Felicity would - well, she isn’t sure what she’d do. She cannot watch them, she just cannot - oh Lord, they’re still standing with their arms around the other, Oliver listening intently as Susan talks, gesturing with her hands.

What is he even doing here in the middle of the work day? Doesn’t the Mayor have Mayorly things to do?

Then, Felicity _really_ looks at him - his face is flushed, which is unusual all on its own. His nose and forehead are red, and she sees him sniffing into a tissue.

He is sick.

She remembers him sneezing about in the lair last night, shoulders slumped, looking like something the cat dragged in. She looks at him now, and at the flush in his cheeks, and the tall cup of tea in his hands and at Susan’s petting hand on his shoulder.

That man has no business being out in this cold.

She purses her lips and gets on her feet.

“I am alright, really,” he is saying to her, eyes lacking any of the usual warmth when they’re crinkling like that. “Just a bad case of allergies.”

He doesn’t have any allergies. Felicity rolls her eyes.

“Hey there,” she announces loudly. “What a coincidence that we ran into each other here. Like this.”

His head jerks up to look at her, and Felicity tries not to be thrilled by the way his eyes brighten when they spot her. He schools his expression into something neutral quickly, but she knows him too well to have not caught it.

“Ms. Smoak,” Susan says. “How are you?”

“Very well, thank you,” she says, because Donna Smoak raised her to be polite, even to people who’re groping her very ill ex-fiance. “Wow, it’s biting cold out here,” she says through chattering teeth, crossing her arms over her chest.

She regrets her words immediately because Oliver, _the big gallant dope,_ starts shrugging out of his heavy coat.

“No, keep that on!” she says, perhaps a tad louder than necessary, startling him in the act of pulling his hand out of one sleeve. “I mean,” she says after the mandatory three breaths, “you look dead on your feet, and you need to stay warm.”

“So do you,” he tells her like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

This is the kind of thing that claws pain into her skin, the kind of thing he does without hesitation, like it’s instinctual, warranting no second thought. Shrugging out of coats and jumping in front of bullets, opening doors and telling her he loves her.

She sighs.

“I just - I was in there, waiting for Thea,” she ignores his questioning eyebrow, “and happened to see the both of you standing here - _in the cold_ \- and I thought I would say hi. Hi!” she finishes awkwardly.

“Hello,” Susan says, wearing an bemusedly interested expression on her face, looking between the pair of them.

Felicity realizes how nice she actually is. If she is honest with herself, she will have to admit that Susan hasn’t done anything mean except maybe, making her ex-fiance stand in the cold with a hundred degree temperature.

Oh, and not kissing Oliver properly.

Then again, Felicity can’t throw any stones from her nice glass house. She isn’t kissing Oliver at all.

“Thea is your sister, yeah?” Susan asks Oliver, who looks like he’s entirely too overwhelmed for this conversation. He is making his _words-are-difficult_ face, so Felicity decides to help him out.

“Yeah,” she says. “Thea and I have a weekly coffee date. You know, to gossip all about the boys. Hers, I mean. Her boys. Not mine. Not that I have any boys. Well, there’s you. I mean, there WAS you, not anymore, obviously - duh, because you’re with Susan, and - that means you can get tea at your coffee shop together and - listen to me babble -which will end in three.. Two.. one.”

The wistful smile on his face tells her that he’s thinking of the same damn thing as her. That goddamn red pen is cursed. Her life has not been the same since she brought that stupid thing to work.

“You are funny,” Susan tells her, smiling. “You and I should meet up sometime.”

“We should?”

“You should?” Oliver asks at the same time, looking a little… frightened.

“Yes honey,” she says, rubbing her palm down the front of his coat, straightening the lapel. Oh Lord, please let her never hear another woman call him an endearment again. _Honey._ She wants to wax her ears shut, which is an entirely irrational response. Billy calls her _honey_ all the time, and she’s never noticed. (Which is a lie, actually, every time he’s called her _Honey_ or _Sweetheart,_ the voice in her head has pointed out that’s not how Oliver stresses the syllables.)

“Felicity, you’re obviously a good friend to Oliver, and I would love to get to know you.”

“I’d like that too,” she is saying before her brain can catch up with her mouth. “I’ll text you! I mean, I will get the number from Oliver, yes - that’s what I meant, I don’t actually have your phone number, and I couldn’t get it on my own if I wanted to - that would be creepy, and requiring computer skills beyond the - you know what, I mean, yes, I will text you.”

“Oo-kaay,” Susan says, a little creeped out now. She is definitely a little creeped out, and Felicity, in all honesty does not blame her. Oliver is shaking his head at her again.

“Anyway,” Felicity continues, because persistence in the face of awkwardness created by her foot-in-mouth problem is how she survives in this world. “I just came out to say hi, and that Oliver really shouldn’t be out here in this cold with his flu -”

“It’s not the flu -”

“It’s _so_ the flu,” she says. “You were sneezing all over the place last night, and don’t think I didn’t notice you sneaking the Aspirins, you’re not as subtle as you think you are, mister -”

She realizes her mistake a few seconds after Oliver’s eyebrows climb into his hairline, and Susan looks questioningly between the pair of them.

“Last night?” she asks him. “You said you had to work late.”

Oliver is shooting daggers at Felicity, before sighing resignedly.

“I _was_ working late,” he says at the same time Felicity says, “He came to our mutual friend’s -”

Oliver now just shakes his head like he’s _done_ with this entire conversation.

“Well, obviously,” Felicity continues because _dear Lord she cannot seem to stop,_ “He worked late, and then came to our mutual friend’s - John Diggle’s, you know - very burly and big and intense looking -”

“John Diggle?”

“Yeah,” Felicity confirms, because yes, she has totally got this, she’s got this under control, even though Oliver is very subtly and vigorously shaking his head at her. “John Diggle’s. We go way back, so Oliver and I were there and I met him there in the company of other people -”

“That’s really odd,” Susan says and this time, she is looking at Felicity with something like anger on her face, “considering that Mr. Diggle was kind enough to drop me home after my car broke down. He happened to also mention that his son was sick, and he was going to be with his family for a quiet night in.”

Oliver slumps. Felicity is sort of silenced into speechlessness. Susan looks from Oliver to her, untwines her arm from his side, and turns resolutely.

“Well,” she tells him. “This was nice. I will see you later, Mr. Mayor.”

Oliver watches her walking off with resigned acceptance.

“Oliver,” she says after a few beats. “I am so _so so sorry -_ I don’t know what I was thinking - well, clearly I wasn’t thinking at all, oh God, I am so sorry - are you in trouble? You’re so totally in trouble, aren’t you? Sleeping on the couch? Do you guys do that? Hang on, are you _living_ together? Did you move in with her? If you did, why the hell are you still sleeping in the cot in the lair -”

“Fel-li-ci-ty,” he says, and her entire body thrills at hearing him say her name. Nobody says her name like he does, and just like that, her entire attention is on him.

“I am sorry.”

“I know,” he nods. “It’s alright. I will go - talk to her. Please, _please,_ don’t ever try to help again.”

“I am not good at it?”

“Actually, you’re the best helper at everything else,” he smiles. “Just not - cover stories.”

“Oh,” she pokes him in the chest with a finger. “I am not taking that from you, Mr. I-Ran-Out-Of-Sports-Bottles.”

He laughs, despite himself.

“I better get back to City Hall,” he says, lips brushing close over the top of her head. “And you know, talk to her. I will see you later?”

“See you later,” she agrees. “Will you go home and get some rest?”

He looks like he’s ready to argue, but something in her expression must speak to him, because he sighs and nods before walking away.

Her phone buzzes in her hand - Thea, apologizing and requesting a rain check. Felicity sighs, goes back inside for her coat and goes home.

*

Thea makes up for the coffee chat the next day.

When they sit down with their mugs, the first thing Thea does is smack her loudly on the arm.

“What?”

“Not only do you dump my brother and break his heart,” she says. “You get him dumped by his rebound girlfriend? Not cool, Smoak.”

“They broke up?”

“Mm-hmm,” Thea says taking a sip of her latte. “Like two hours after your verbal vomit clusterfuck.”

“Oh no no no no -” she buries her face in her hands.

“She told him she wasn’t ready to a rebound when he’s clearly so hung up on his ex.”

“What?” Felicity asks. “No, there is no hang up, nobody is hanging anything, I don’t even hang up on him when he calls me, because then he goes all grrrrr and you know how -”

“She also told him,” Thea presses on, because if she doesn’t interrupt Felicity, they will be here all day, “that there was no need for him to lie to her about sleeping with you.”

“We are not -”

“I know, Felicity. I know,” Thea says. “There isn’t much I can do for my brother’s stupidity when it comes to keeping secrets. I can’t help any of the reasons you broke up with him over. And certainly, your tendency to word vomit is also - _unsurprising_. But, this random woman spent five minutes with the two of you and decided my brother is a cheating bastard.”

“Thea,” Felicity holds her coffee cup like it’s a lifeline.

“And it’s sort of because of me -”

Felicity’s grip around her coffee cup tightens, and she is nearly hundred percent sure that she will regret her next question.

“What do you mean, _because of you?”_

“He was having a coughing fit on the phone when I called him that day,” Thea explains, looking sheepish. “I might have deliberately told him that this place makes great herbal tea.”

It all comes crashing around Felicity’s ears.

“You _wanted us_ to run into each other,” she says her eyes narrowing. “Thea Queen, you promised not to meddle.”

“You asked me to promise not to meddle,” Thea points out, sitting back in her chair. “I never agreed.”

“Semantics, Thea,” Felicity says sharply. “Besides, what did you think I was going to do? Run into him while getting coffee and magically consider all of our issues fixed? I am still mad at him, you know.”

“I know,” Thea shrugs. “I wasn’t looking to get the two of you back together. I just wanted to get you to listen to him. To give him a chance to talk.”

“What made you think I would be willing to listen on a random day over accidental coffee?”

“Felicity,” Thea says exasperatedly, like Felicity is the one who’s being dense. “Give me some credit. Who do you think I am? Like it or not, I am Malcolm Merlyn’s daughter. I didn’t just send you Oliver. I sent you sick, ill, coughing Oliver looking like a pathetic puppy dog needing hugs and lots of TLC.”

Oh Jesus, it all makes sense now. Felicity is sort of reluctantly impressed. “Oh, you manipulative bitch,” she says with a lot of affection.

“Thank you,” Thea sits back, smiling. “The easiest way to get you to stop being mad at my brother is to turn on the protective impulse. It was an excellent plan. Elegant. I just didn’t count on _her_ being there.”

“Right,” Felicity slumps forward on the table between them. “ _Her.”_

“And my rather elegant plan fell apart like a house of cards,” Thea says crossly, folding her arms over her chest and looking put out. “Thanks to _her_ and your gigantic foot in mouth problem. Now, my brother has been dumped by two girlfriends in as many months.”

“Hey,” Felicity says. “Who asked you to meddle?”

“He is my _brother,_ Felicity. He is moping around like a spurned lover from the Victorian age.”

“Really?”

“So. Much. Moping,” Thea emphasizes each word with an index finger pointed at her. “And don’t get me started on the sparring matches. I don’t think there is a muscle in my body that doesn’t hurt. Even Diggle is begging off. ”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Felicity admits, feeling a little lost, because she misses him too. “I am hurting too. I miss him so much.”

“I know,” Thea admits, looking uncertain for the first time in this conversation. “I am so sorry. I just - I want him happy. You’re one of my best friends, and I want you to be happy too. I _know_ you guys can be amazing if you just try. Can’t you try again?”

“I don’t know,” Felicity confesses, because this is too much for her, all of this. This is a terrible idea, but hearing it in Thea’s words, it sounds like the most optimistic thing in the world. The Queens are such persuasive sweet talkers, that she feels blindsided by the whole lot of them.

“Think about it, please?”

“Only if you promise not to meddle any more.”

“I promise. I really do.”

“Then, I will think about it,” she says.

“That’s all I am asking for,” Thea agrees. “And please don’t ever tell my brother about this.”

Felicity nods, suppressing a grin at her imagined Oliver-reaction.

“You know,” she says after a few moments’ silence. “It was not such an elegant plan. I am not a total sucker for his puppy dog eyes.”

“Oh yeah?” Thea smirks at her. “What’s in that tupperware in your bag over there, Felicity? Didn’t you say you were going to the lair right after this?”

Goddamn Queens are a pain in her ass.

“Chicken noodle soup.”

“I rest my case.”

“Shut up, Thea.”

 _As you wish, sister-in-law,_ Thea doesn’t say.

 ~ finis ~

**Author's Note:**

> Leave prompt ideas! I swear I will write them all.


End file.
